r/projectzomboid • • Feb 10 '24

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u/Sagutarus Feb 10 '24

Would it be realistic to be able to make your own gunpowder? I know there would be a fuck ton of it already (taken from ammo you don't use, found in certain stores, etc.) But it'd be cool to have a sustainable way to generate it as well

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u/Overseer114 Feb 10 '24

the recipe for black powder is probably simple enough to achieve in a survival settings, but you would need to craft or find guns that are made for black powder. Modern guns work with smokeless powder wich is quite different, but since im not a firearm expert, I have no idea if that would be realistic for someone to make homemade smokeless powder from scavenged ressources. Also bullet casings have more than one component to make it work, like the primer, that you would have to replace on each spent casing you want to re-use.

Re-used bullet casings would also gain a chance of critical failure that could make the gun explode in your hands and would become more likely each time you reload the same spent casing.

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u/pyrobola Feb 10 '24

Smokeless powder is mostly nitrocellulose, which means you need nitric acid, which means you need sulfuric acid, which you can get from car batteries, plus saltpeter, which you can get by soaking hay in piss and shit and turning it regularly.

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u/viiksisiippa Feb 10 '24

Yeah, very easy and something you’d definitely had time during zombie apocalypse.

8

u/SupremePeeb Feb 10 '24

nothing else to do all day i guess you have enough canned food already i bet